PDP to El-Rufai: direct your attacks at Buhari

The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has charged the Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, to direct his verbal attacks at President Muhammadu Buhari instead of issuing threats to members of the international community and election observers.

In a statement Thursday by the spokesman for the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan, the main opposition party recalled how El-Rufai, had, in 2010, described Buhari as incompetent, old fashioned, corrupt, insensitive, parochial and a tyrannical leader, who should not be voted into office.

The statement reads, “Governor el-Rufai’s venom should therefore be directed towards President Buhari, who has brought so much pain to Nigerians and of course himself, for his own insensitivity to Nigerians and his support for anti-democratic tendencies of the Buhari administration”.

According to the PDP, the governor’s recent threat to members of the international community has raised new questions regarding those behind the killing of expatriates and aid workers in various troubled parts of the country.

“It is quite revealing that el-Rufai, who exposed Gen. Buhari in 2010 as ‘unelectable’ is now prancing about in defence of Buhari’s incompetent and anti-democratic administration, to the extent of issuing death threats to others, just to secure his place under a dictatorial administration.

“Governor el-Rufai had in 2010 described Gen. Buhari as ill- equipped for modern day governance. He berated Gen. Buhari of lacking capacity to comprehend current trends, to the extent that he would think that a ‘blackberry was a fruit’..

The PDP quoted copiously from the Kaduna governor’s past attacks against President Buhari thus: “In his reply to Gen. Buhari’s response to his earlier criticisms, el-Rufai has stated: ‘Mallam El-Rufai wishes to remind General Buhari that he has remained perpetually unelectable because his record as military head of state, and afterwards, is a warning that many Nigerians have wisely heeded. His insensitivity to Nigeria’s diversity and his parochial focus are already well-known.

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“In 1984, Buhari allowed 53 suitcases belonging to his ADC’s father to enter Nigeria unchecked at a time the country was exchanging old currency for new…..

“Buhari was so high- handed that he gave himself and his officials immunity even from truthful reporting. That obnoxious Decree 4, against which truth was no defence, was used to jail journalists and attempt to cow the media as a whole.

“That tyrannical legislation shows the essence of his intolerance. These are facts of recent history. The story of counter-trade and import licensing, the cornerstone of Buhari’s stone-age economic strategy and those whose interests it served, is a tale for another day”

The PDP described the Buhari administration as inept and colossally corrupt, which has wrecked a once robust economy, divided the nation and instituted executive high-handedness.

It also accused the administration of violation of human rights, incessant breach of the constitution, disobedience to court order, assaults on democratic institutions, clamp down on the media and dissenting voices. The party added that these have brought so much pain and anguish to Nigerians.